Switch Motion Control Tips
This page contains information on Skyward Sword HD for the Nintendo Switch's new motion control setup, and tips to make the most of it.
When first released for the Nintendo Wii, Skyward Sword was entirely built around motion controls - which makes porting it to a console that doesn’t have the same level of motion controller support kind of tricky. But Nintendo seems to have figured it out with Skyward Sword HD, making it fully playable without any sort of motion controls using either the Switch Gamepad or a Pro Controller. How does it work? Well, let’s take a quick look and find out.
Tips for Camera Controls
Watch our Motion Control Tips Video Above!
One of the big new things that Skyward Sword HD adds from a control perspective is the ability to freely control the camera with the right stick, something that was literally impossible on the Wii due to there only being one control stick.
When you’re playing without motion controls though, things work a little bit differently due to the fact that the right stick is where Nintendo has placed your sword controls.
So if you want to move the camera, you’ll have to first hold down the left bumper and then move the stick. It takes some getting used to, but fortunately, there’s also the option of just doing the classic 3D Zelda thing of centering the camera behind Link with Z-targeting by pressing the left trigger.
Tips for Sword Combat
Combat is where things see the biggest change, and there’s a couple of key things to make note of:
First off is the fact that, because the game was originally designed around direction-specific attacks rather than the more traditional “just stab whatever’s in front of you,” you need to flick the right stick in the direction you want to slash. Quickly move the stick in a direction and then quickly let it return to its regular position. It’s a bit finicky, and takes some practice to really get the hang of - if the stick doesn’t go all the way to the edge, you won’t get a slash; if the stick holds on the edge for too long, you won’t get a slash. It just needs a quick flick.
The second major thing that you need to know is that when you come up against an enemy that blocks in a direction, you have to actually flick the stick in the direction that they are guarding. So if a Lizalfos is blocking to the left, you have to flick the stick to the left, because the stick motion mimics the path of the sword. It’s not “Hit the left side,” it’s actually “swing the sword from the right to left.” It’s a bit counterintuitive, but basically, instead of thinking of them as shielding themselves, think of them as holding up a sign that says “attack here.” That said, it’s not a perfect strategy. These guys seemed to block from down below even while they were blocking high, at which point, I’d say just use a horizontal slash.
Stabs, or forward thrusts, are handled by clicking in the right stick, while shield parries are handled by clicking in the left stick, Skyward Strikes can actually be done much more easily by simply holding the right stick up, and finally you can also use spin attacks by quickly moving the stick left, right left; right, left, right; down, up, down; or up, down, up.
Other Motion Control Tips
Everything in Skyward Sword HD works pretty much as you’d expect. Instead of holding up the remote and tossing bombs, for example, all you need to do is equip a bomb, move the right stick up, and press the right trigger. You can ride your bird with normal stick controls; the harp can be played by just moving the right stick back and forth, and anything that would typically use motion controls to aim, now can use the Splatoon esque-hybrid aiming system that uses both the right stick and the Switch’s gyro controls on the pro controller or gamepad.